My name is Richard C. Cook. I am the author of a new book called "Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan
Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age," as well as two recent articles on Global Research on space policy and economic issues.

I have just finished reading your outstanding article on "Putin and the Geopolitics of the New Cold War," with which I agree in
every detail. I believe that the U.S. establishment could be planning a nuclear first strike on Russia. There is a profound split within the U.S. military, however, in that the Army and Navy and elements of the Air Force still view their
job as a defensive force to secure the safety of the United States. The element of the military which aims for world conquest, even through a first strike, includes the higher echelons of the Air Force, the Missile Defense Agency, and that
part of the civilian leadership most aligned with the powerful financial forces that are the real overseers of the country.

In my book "Challenger Revealed" I point out that an underlying cause of the 1986 disaster was the takeover of the Shuttle program
by the leadership of Star Wars in order to use the shuttle as a testing platform for space weapons. My book also makes it clear that Star Wars was always intended to facilitate offensive warfare. The only "good" thing about the
Challenger disaster was that it brought space weapons testing to a halt, since the Air Force had no alternative testing system. Today they have corrected that flaw by shifting back to unmanned launchers for testing and deployment.

Your statement in your article that, "Bush`s America is a hollowed-out debt-ridden economy engaged on using its last card, its vast
military power, to prop up the dollar and its role as world sole Superpower," is, of course, correct. Unfortunately, the Asian powers, including Russia, which are uniting against the U.S. have time on their side. The U.S. economy is
on a trajectory for collapse, even while the military power and economies of the Asian giants is growing daily. This could mean that the U.S. tries to take decisive action sooner rather than later. I discuss and document these economic and
geopolitical issues in a new book I am writing.